O’neill: I just wanted 18 months or so but only got 19 games...
CITY GROUND EXIT DOESN’T SIT COMFORTABLY WITH MARTIN
MARTIN O’neill was still in his office at the City Ground when the new Nottingham Forest manager was announced.
Sabri Lamouchi would soon be placing family photos on the desk which had been O’neill’s for just five months as a 19-game spell in charge came to an end in the summer of 2019.
It was an inauspicious end to an inauspicious stint in the hot seat once occupied by Brian Clough, the man he won a League title and two European Cups under.
O’neill is one of the Miracle Men but his return to the club as manager in January 2019 heralded a final chapter to his Forest story which still rankles, even if O’neill jokes about the manner of his successor being announced now, having felt owner Evangelos Marinakis would give him longer.
“To have 19 games in charge of a club where I spent 10 years as a player, it doesn’t sit comfortably with you,” he told the Garibladi Red podcast while discussing his new autobiography On Days Like These ahead of a book signing in Nottingham tomorrow.
“I came back to try and get promotion, simple as that. I’d had the opportunity a number of times before that, including the previous year, but I thought this would be the time. It was a long time since the club had been in the big league and all I wanted to do was get them promotion.
“I said to the owner I just wanted 18 months to do so. If I couldn’t get them up I’d walk away. He was happy with that.
“I’m not so sure 19 games in charge is any real criteria. If I’d known that was all I would get then I wouldn’t have bothered, particularly being a club so close to my heart. The owner said to me ‘don’t worry about this season. If we can scramble into the play-offs that would be great.’ He told me we’d have reinforcements in the summer and go for it.
“It’s amazing to see how few players are still at the club now. You would expect changes when a team goes into the Premier League, but even the changes other managers were enable to enact, fine.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing but after 19 games, particularly having won the last three, even if too late to make the play-offs, but you’re getting to know the team. I did one week of pre-season and got called in by the chief executive (Ioannis Vrentzos) to say the way I was running the club was not the way they wanted to.
“I was in my office 24 minutes later when Lamouchi is announced as manager. You’d think they’d at least let me get out of the office! I’m still there at the City Ground when this is unfolding but, listen, that’s the nature of the game.”
When O’neill left it was said he had fallen out with players during half a season which saw Forest end up finishing ninth having won their final three games. A run of four straight defeats in April had ended lingering play-off hopes.
After his sacking there was plenty of talk of player power and of a brutal week of running at Wollaton Hall, just as Clough had done with players when he was manager. There was a feeling his methods were outdated and football had moved on, on and off the pitch.
O’neill is open about the fact he’s fallen out with players – just as Clough did with him – but he felt he could bring them along with him as he had done elsewhere, in time.
“It definitely needed a big overhaul that summer,” he added.
“There were players at the club who really weren’t good enough to play for Nottingham Forest for a start. I didn’t think they were good enough to take the team into the big league.
“I had my mind set on some players. It would have been nice to have had that opportunity at Forest but, listen, life goes on, it’s over. I noticed there’s this idea of player power against me. I’m not so sure that there was that many players of great power
in the dressing room. Ben Watson had won a medal (the FA Cup) but I’m not so sure it was littered with gold dust after that.
“What does it matter (if the players questioned him)? When I started out at Wycombe a number of players railed against my management and then came right through and were stalwarts of the team.
“When I went to Leicester City I couldn’t buy a win early on and there were arguments in the dressing room. All those players we carried to success and they were there with their two League Cup winners medals.
“I fell out with some very good players at Celtic too. My first time dealing with Stiliyan Petrov, a very good young player at the time, I told him he needed to push on or he’d be left behind.
“He agreed and when I went to Villa he was my first signing. Great player but he needed pushing. If that style of management is not to some players’ liking – well it didn’t seem to be the liking of the next manager, or the one after.
“I’m not sure the stories (about player power) are true. It was perpetuated that there was but I get back to saying there weren’t many players at that time who had the power where the world would listen to them.”
O’neill is well aware of how those runs at Wollaton Park went down among the group. He doesn’t seem bothered, convinced now he was right to stick with his methods that had been successful throughout his career.
For O’neill, players will moan and answer back just as he did at times. “That’s players for you,” is the message.
“As a manager you know you’re in the results business. We had a 41 or 42 percent win rate in the 19 games. If I’d had a pre-season with the players, I think it gives you an indication of what you’re facing,” he said.
“At Aston Villa I had two weeks before the season started, which was something. Here, I came in on a Thursday and was managing a game on the Saturday. We won the last three games of the season and I was really looking forward to pre-season.
“We did a week at Wollaton Park. A tough week for the players and I think some were railing against that but I hear some of them saying afterwards that week stood them in good stead for the season.
“There you go. That’s players for you!”
■ Martin O’neill’s autobiography On Days Live These is out now. He will be signing copies in Nottingham tomorrow at Waterstones on Bridlesmith Gate between 2pm and 3pm.